1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to an electronic thermometer. More particularly, the invention concerns an electronic thermometer which is so arranged as to correct measured temperature in consideration of temperature characteristic of a temperature sensor element incorporated in a temperature sensing unit or assembly which is adapted to be disconnectably coupled to a main body of the thermometer so as to be exchangeable with another temperature sensing unit or assembly.
2. Description of the Prior Art
There has therefore been known an electronic thermometer which comprises a temperature sensing unit or assembly incorporating a thermosensitive element or temperature sensor element and a measuring and processing unit for measuring or determining the temperature of an object to be measured such as a human body on the basis of an electric signal available at the output of the temperature sensor element, wherein the latter is disconnectably combined with the measuring and processing unit so that the temperature sensing unit or assembly can be exchanged with another sensing assembly. In this type of thermometer, correction circuits are provided in the temperature sensing assembly and the measuring/processing unit, respectively. Owing to remarkable advances in the electronic technology in the recent years, the temperature sensing assembly can be manufactured at such very low cost that it may be discarded after use, a disposable thermometer, so to say, unless a correction or compensating circuit is required. In reality, the disconnectable or separatable temperature sensing assembly of this type tends to be used on the disposable basis in hospitals or the like where a large amount of temperature measuring and processing tasks are to be dealt with.
However, for the accurate temperature measurement, the correction circuit for correcting the measured temperature in view of the temperature characteristic of the sensor element as used is indispensably required. In this conjunction, the hitherto known thermometer including the correction or compensation circuits in the temperature sensing assembly and the measuring processing unit, respectively, is disadvantageous in that the circuit configuration such as that of the detection circuit is very complicated, giving rise to a problem that the thermometer is too expensive to be disposable.